Plaintiffs on both coasts allege Donald Trump ran a business that pressured students into buying his expensive real estate courses, which cost up to $35,000, but he didn’t supply the training in how to make money on real estate. | AP Photo

Tales from the Trump University legal vault

A guidebook for Trump University instructed staff to kick off the real estate seminars by playing “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays on an iPod shuffle.

The book told employees to collect financial information from those who attended and rank them by their liquid assets to see who could afford more coursework. And staffers kept hotel ballrooms at a precise temperature — no more than 68 degrees — at the expensive real estate seminars.

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These details and scores of others are embedded in thousands of pages of documents that comprise the lawsuits attacking a set of education courses GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has boasted about.

Now, the cases brought by jilted students in California and the New York state attorney general accusing Trump of fraud are the source of jabs from his campaign trail competition. Plaintiffs on both coasts allege Trump ran a business that pressured students into buying his expensive real estate courses, which cost up to $35,000, but he didn’t supply the training in how to make money on real estate the founder promised. Trump has said that most students were satisfied, and the plaintiffs are looking for their money back.

The hundreds of Trump University seminars conducted over several years were tightly choreographed, the documents related to the fraud cases indicate; employees at introductory sessions were even told to use a blue and goldTrump University logo as their laptop background, and the seminars were recorded.

More details from the voluminous court filings:

Trump was heavily involved in marketing. It’s unclear what else.

Some of Trump’s lawyers have tried to distance him from Trump University, claiming that he had little to do with its daily operations. But in depositions, both Trump and Trump University President Michael Sexton indicated the real estate magnate was hands-on with at least one part of the business: marketing.

Trump said in a deposition in the California case, recorded in 2012 and released in part last year, that he sometimes reviewed advertisements and testimonials for Trump University. And Sexton said Trump reviewed print ads. Some Trump University advertising alluded to Trump’s success with “The Apprentice”; one promised potential enrollees a chance to “learn from the master."

“Any time we had a new ad, we would discuss it,” Sexton said. The conversations happened “fairly frequently” — each time there was a new batch of print advertisements for Trump University, according to Sexton. In comparison, Sexton said he only occasionally reviewed financial documents with Trump.

Meredith McIver, who co-wrote Trump tomes including “Trump 101: The Way to Success,” also works as a ghostwriter for Trump and worked with him on blog posts and Q & A's for Trump University, according to Sexton.

“Certainly Miss McGiver [sic] created content for our newsletter and our blog, but, you know, it was fairly collaborative. Mr. Trump was always — he would come up with often the topic and then ultimately would approve the — the copy as well,” Sexton saidin a deposition.

Trump referred all kinds of questions about the business and its operations to Sexton, including what students got in exchange for an apprenticeship program and whether Trump University instructors had to have college degrees. Trump also said in his deposition he didn’t know the last name of one of the “two girls that work in the office” and help schedule appointments and check emails.

But Jill Martin, a Trump Organization vice president and assistant general counsel, told POLITICO that though Trump “was not involved in the day-to-day operations, he was very much involved in developing the content of the courses,” which she said incorporated many of Trump’s business and real estate strategies and provided students with real-world examples based on the billionaire’s own real estate successes.

Trump’s deposition for the California lawsuit contradicts this: Asked about who developed the course materials, he said that “the different professors created their own material” and Sexton oversaw the process.

Trump University told staff to avoid the media — and the attorney general.

The playbook from 2010 instructed event staff to avoid engaging with reporters, and staff should “expect to be scrutinized” if reporters attempted to crash a Trump University event.

"Reporters are rarely on your side and they are not sympathetic,” the playbook says.

It also advises Trump University staff on how to handle an attorney general showing up at a weekend seminar, advising employees to contact a senior manager immediately.

“By law, you do not have to show them any personal information unless they present a warrant; however, you are expected to be courteous,” the playbook says.

Trump University focused on keeping students coming back.

Plaintiffs allege that free seminars and paid weekend courses were used by Trump staff to sell clients on longer, more expensive courses, which included a yearlong seminar and mentoring experience.

The university playbook has dozens of pages devoted to selling attendees on more Trump courses. Staffers were advised to “substitute the words ‘thank you’ with ‘congratulations'" in conversations with the students and to move fast when pushing students to buy.

“We want to dictate what they do,” the playbook says. “Therefore, if you move quickly and give students a sense of urgency to register, they will move quickly.”

Trump’s lawyer told POLITICO that students learned valuable information and those who used it were “overwhelmingly satisfied” with Trump University.

“Ninety-eight percent of the students, including the named plaintiffs themselves, rated Trump University’s programs as ‘excellent’ and stated during their depositions that the programs taught them valuable information,” Martin said.

Trump thinks his name is worth $3 billion alone.

Trump’s net worth became the subject of debate last year after Forbes estimated he was worth $4 billion, far less than the more than $10 billion that Trump has said he is worth. (This week, Forbes estimated Trump is worth $4.5 billion.) It’s still an open question now, and Trump hasn’t released tax returns that could clarify things.

But he said in a 2012 deposition that he’s had estimates done that concluded the “Trump brand” is worth over $3 billion.

Trump wants to bring the university back.

Trump said in the 2012 deposition that he may reopen the business. Trump University wasn’t operating at the time because he’d become busy with other matters and the lawsuit “has had such a negative impact” on Trump University.By then, the New York attorney general had accused Trump University of operating illegally in the state and pushed the business to remove the word “University” from its name.

“Would we start it again, and do we plan to start it again after this lawsuit is won and after we bring the lawsuit against your firm? I would say probably, yeah,” Trump said.

He added later on that it’s possible he’ll restart Trump University “in a heavy way.”